At 10:18 AM 5/9/96 -0400, Dave Green, Eastern Pollinator Newsletter wrote: > My wife and I are enjoying (and packing) some of the eastern US varietal >honeys, and are more and more interested in doing gift packs of these. We >also are thinking of doing honey tasting parties, like the wine folks do. > > My question is: Outside of eastern USA, I'm sure there are many fine >honeys (and maybe some awful ones too), and I'd like to hear from some of the >beekeepers on what they consider the finest and worst of their area. Who >knows, maybe we'd be interested in buying some of these? When my uncle kept bees east of Fayetteville, NC, he would get a huckleberry (similar to blueberries) honey which was a very mild berry flavored, rich blue to light purple in color. City people driving through would buy the honey, but only after he spent a lot of time convincing them that no, he did not add food coloring to the honey. When I had a hive in southern Va, I produced a water-clear, mild flavored honey that I thought was Sourwood. At least it matched the characteristics of Sourwood honey sold along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Since I was a rank beginner at the time, maybe it was actually tupelo honey - as you know, it is sometimes really hard to determine the source of the nectar being brought in, especially when a lot of different plants are blooming at once. Doug Russell [log in to unmask]